


Come Back to Me

by Winchesteralism



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Broken Castiel, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Fallen Angels, Fallen Castiel, Human Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Post Season 8, Romance, Romantic Angst, Season/Series 08, Season/Series 08 Spoilers, oh the angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winchesteralism/pseuds/Winchesteralism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Angels have fallen, and Dean is left to pick up the pieces of his fallen angel. He can only hope he can be enough for Cas- enough to be able to put his broken angel back together. (Season 8 spoilers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mark of a New Era

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm in the process of moving all my stories over here, so bear with me!

"No. No no no. Shit. CAS! Listen to me you son of a bitch! Get your feathery ass over here right fucking now. Dammit!"

Dean paced back and forth, only stopping to turn around and send a stack of papers and notes scattering across the floor. It had been hours since the first angels had started to fall, and Dean still hadn't heard a word from him.

_Stupid Stupid Stupid. What if he went and got himself fucking killed?_

Dean was stuck in the bunker, waiting for Sam to get back. When the angels had started falling, Sam didn't even had to say a word, he just manhandled the catatonic Dean into the passenger seat and drove them back wordlessly. It was a testament to how out of it Dean was when he couldn't even find it in him to protest when Sam had taken the keys from his pocket.

Only when they pulled up did Dean have enough sense to be able to get out of the car and shakily make it inside without face-planting. He felt sick, and his head was starting to be filled with a shrill ringing noise, one of which sent his blood pounding in his ears.

When Sam came into the room two minute later, the first thing he heard was pained breathing coming from the kitchen. Sam ran to the source of the noise, and found Dean hunched over the trash can, dry heaving and covered in a cold sweat.

"Hey Hey, Dean. Dean look at me!" Sam rushed over to Dean and knelt next to him, taking his brother's face in his hands. Sam waited until Dean's eyes slowly focused on his face.

* * *

Shock had clearly settled into panic already, and Sam had to say something fast before it escalated to quickly.

"Dean, look. Man listen to me, Cas is going to be ok. Dean! I said he's going to be ok. Look- you stay here, see if he comes back. I'm going to go out and look for him. We'll find him, ok? Nothing bad's gonna happen. He's tough, remember? Tougher then both of us. We're going to get through this. You gotta focus, man. Get up. I need you here with me man,  _Cas_  needs you here with me. I can't go 'till I know you're not gonna pass out on the floor."

Slowly, color started to return to Dean's face and he squared his jaw. Giving a small nod, Sam helped Dean to his feet and led him over to a chair. When Dean was seated, Sam went over to the fridge and pulled out the sole water bottle that hadn't seen daylight in weeks. Sighing, Sam ran his hand over his face and handed the bottle out to Dean.

"Couldn't have killed you to grab me a beer?" Dean muttered, but he took the bottle anyway. He twisted the cap off and in two hard pulls, downed the bottle and tossed his head back. Taking that as a sign that Dean was starting to return to himself, he headed over to the door and threw on his jacket.

"Dean."

From across the room, Dean looked up.

"He's going to be fine…ok? Cas is going to come back."

Dean just supplied a shaky nod before looking away, clearly trying to school his facial expression and not show any emotions in front of his brother.

Sighing, Sam closed the door. He really needed to find his brothers angel, and fast.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ya! Chapter 1! Really short I know, but please tell me what you think? Um- I'm going to try to have the next chapter up by tomorrow or the day after- so stay tuned! Review Please!
> 
> ~Magnolia


	2. Heal What Has Been Hurt

_Flower gleam and glow,_   
_Let your power shine,_   
_Make the clock reverse,_   
_Bring back what once was mine._

_Heal what has been hurt,_   
_Change the fates design,_   
_Save what has been lost,_   
_Bring back what once was mine,_   
_What once was mine._

Sam had been gone for six hours, and of course the Sasquatch wasn't picking up his phone. Dean had run out of things to do hours ago. He had placed all the calls he could think of- practically clearing out his dad's journal. Frustrated, Dean picked up one of the empty beer bottles and hurled it against the wall.

Surprisingly, it did little to calm him down.

A rush of fatigue swept over him, and Dean collapsed to the couch, head in hand _. No no no no no no…_

* * *

A shrill ringing shocked him awake, and Dean sat up, groaning as he was hit with sudden vertigo. Ignoring it, he scrambled over to the phone and quickly accepted the call.

"Sam?"

"Dean! Dean I found him. Shit, he was at the edge of the woods on the ground."

The sudden juddering of his heart crashed loudly through his ears. How was it possible that his blood was pumping fiercer than ever yet at the same time not at all?

He gulped, feeling his Adam's apple quake in his throat. He tried to concentrate, he _needed_  to concentrate.

"Is he- fuck, is he ok?"

Waiting the few seconds for the reply was torture; pure, unbridled, torture.

"I don't know. He- he's breathing. But- um, I think something attacked him. There's claw marks or something all over his arms and legs, and he's bleeding, Dean. He's not healing. And his _throat_. Jesus, it looks like someone slit his throat. I put pressure on all the wounds I could, but Dean, just- be ready when I get back. I'm ten minutes out."

Dean was frozen, rooted in position as he felt like he was just pushed overboard. He felt like he was drowning.  _Think_. He heard Sam's words through the phone, but it took hours for them to actually register in his brain; words like  _'bleeding'_ ,  _'throat'_  and,  _'not healing'_  were sent reeling and spinning to his very core.

When he finally processed the end of Sam's sentence, he nodded slowly before realizing that Sam couldn't see him. "Ya- ya of course. I'll be ready."

"Good." It came out tense, forced. Dean could picture his taunt muscles and death grip on the wheel. Numbly, he ended the call and dropped the phone onto the couch. He needed to move, to be ready.

Stiffly, Dean walked around the hotel room, going back and forth between several rooms and scavenging things to use for first aid. In the end, he ended up having to strip one of the beds of its' sheets to tear it into bandages. When he was done, on the table laid out in disarray were needles, cloth, water, tweezers, alcohol, thread, a bucket, and a pocket knife. Dean cursed the feeble supplies, but knew it would have to be enough.

It seemed like forever after he had finished setting up for the door to ring, signaling Sam's return. He was stretched so tight that he almost jumped when the high-pitched wail of the buzzer was pressed repeatedly, followed swiftly by Sam kicking against the door.

"Dean! Dean open up!"

He ran over to the door, hitting the chair in the process and almost landing on the floor. He yanked the door open and came face to face with Sam who was practically carrying an unconscious Cas into the room.

Cas was broken, that was really the only word for it. Blood pooled through the hasty bandages Sam had made out of his shirt and ran down his legs, which dragged on the floor- lifeless. His shoes were missing, and his feet looked to be full of pickers and splinters; though you could hardly tell over the swelling and the puss. Through his muddied and ripped shirt, Dean could see more blood.

_Did he have any more blood left to lose?_

* * *

Dean got his answer about an hour later. Yes, he did have more to lose, if the state of their carpet was anything to go by. After laying him out of the carpet and just looking at him, trying to figure out what to do; Dean was almost glad the dude was unconscious. Because patching him up? Damn, that was going to hurt.

Without saying a word, Dean had Cas laid out of the floor and went to his feet. They were limp, and the sight of them almost brought Dean to tears. Almost. Instead, he examined them, carefully turning them to figure out the best way to desplinter them. His feet were so swollen; he could barely even see the wood lodged in his foot. Then again, the half-congealed puss didn't exactly make it any easier. With a set stomach, Dean set about dripping water over them and carefully toweling them off before grabbing the tweezers and setting to work.

When he was almost halfway through and with a pile of wood and spikes next to him, Dean prayed that Cas was too out of it to feel anything. Because this? This would hurt like hell. With each piece of wood dislodged, a stream of discolored blood and puss leaked from his feet. At one point, Dean felt a shock of cold travel up his spine and he sat up, rigidly.

_Would he even be able to walk again?_

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Castiel's feet were about as fixed as they were going to get. Carefully, Dean took the alcohol and slowly poured it over his feet, mentally wincing at the sting that it was sure to cause. When he was done, he set it back on the table, only minutely aware of Sam taking the bottle and cleansing some of his wound's further up. Dean didn't bother to look. He had tunnel vision, only seeing Cas. Only seeing the endless cuts and bruises that littered his lifeless body. If it wasn't for the ragged intake of breath, however shallow, that filled the room every now and then, Dean would assume he was dead.

Dean forced himself to stop thinking then, because Cas  _wouldn't_ die. He couldn't. He was a fucking angel of the lord, a  _warrior of heaven_. He  _can't_ die.

After a few moments, Sam and Dean wordlessly relocated Cas to the bathroom. It would be bad enough trying to explain the elephant sized pool of blood in the middle of the room as it was, no need to make it even worse. They set him gently in the tub and assessed the rest of damage to Cas' body. He was almost entirely swathed in fugly-pattered bandages, and wherever there weren't bandages, there were bruises.

Finally, all they had left to do was fix his torso. Carefully, Dean peeled the shirt off of Cas. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Sam, and could barely stop one from himself. On Cas' chest was a sigil. The one used to banish angels. One he had seen hundreds of times, but only once carved into skin. Dean tried not to think about it as he cleaned and dressed the wound, careful to keep his mind painfully blank.

After what seemed like hours later, Sam and Dean carried Cas to the bed and laid him down. He was still unconscious, but he wasn't bleeding anymore; so they could count that as a win, at least.

Dean sat down heavily in a chair. He sagged, massaging his nose in his hand. Images of the sigil flashed over and over again in his head.

_Dammit Cas, what the hell happened?_


	3. The Road So Far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forever apologetic about the long wait. That was never meant to happen.
> 
> I was a bit hesitant to start writing this again as I had used the plot I wanted for this fic in another; so I was a bit reluctant to have to think of a new one and not just a repeat of other fics. So! I'm trying this out and hoping this gets me back into the swing of things. Sorry for the short chapter! I have to go to work in .5 minutes and just needed to get something out there.
> 
> Hope this chapter puts things into context! 
> 
> ALSO: If you haven't already please go back and reread the last two chapters. I added stuff and changed some stuff so it's prob a good idea to just refresh; ya know?
> 
> And finally: thank you for you're continued support. It means a lot and is one of the main reasons I finally sat my ass down to write again :)
> 
> Let me know what you think of the latest installment!

_It's been a long year_   
_Since we last spoke_   
_How's your halo?_

_I'm under that night_   
_I'm under those same stars_   
_We're in a red car_   
_You asleep at my side_   
_Going in and out of the headlights_   
_Could I have saved you?_

Dean leaned heavily onto the bed; resting his stiff forearms and stretching his back. Huffing quietly; he sat back in his chair and looked onward once more. Lying as unchanged as ever was Cas. He hadn't regained consciousness once in the last week; and only a few of the gashes had started to heal over. Even worse; many of the deeper cuts were still spewing diseased fluid, forcing Dean to have to change the dressings every few hours.

Feeding him also became a necessity; after realizing on the third day that Cas' ribs were starting to show through at an alarming rate. At an alarmingly  _human_  rate.

It scared him; having to drip soup into the mouth of his angel; having to ever so slowly watch as the drops of liquid gradually made its way into the back of his throat and listen to the painful drag of Cas' swallows. And then having to repeat the process; over and over. It would take almost an hour to finish a small bowl.

Dean would talk to him, now and then. About anything really; hell- the weather. But he would also talk about them; when Sam and Kevin were out. He would talk about the time when he was drunk out of his mind and finally kissed Cas for the first time. He would talk about the awkward month of denial where he acted as if nothing had happened at all; and he would talk about that day out in Bumfuck, Nowhere Utah where Cas had slammed him into a wall and asked for answers- where Dean had broken and just  _talked_.

"Remember that, Cas? You held me up against the wall death glaring me like no other and I just broke. I couldn't shut my damn mouth and spilled how I would catch myself watching you walk away and thinking, "well isn't that an attractive son of a bitch" and how that fucked me up for  _weeks_. And how when I would jerk off every time I thought of you and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. And how I  _hated_ you for it. Hated you for your damn blue eyes and your damn head tilt and how you're always fucking there whenever you need to be and how you always kept fucking coming back and how everything about you was just so  _infuriatin_ g!"

Dean laughed, shaking his head. "And then how you just looked at me and tilted your head and said, "What does any of this have to do with you're insistence to  ignore everything I say and do while in your presence; especially when I come to the bunker at your request, Dean?""

Sighing, Dean reached forward and lightly held on to Cas' wrist. "And then remember what I did next? I told you it was your own damn fault that I couldn't stop thinking about you. How it was your own damn fault. And then I leaned forward those three inches because you learned absolutely  _nothing_  about personal space no matter how many times I talked to you about it and you were just  _so fucking close_  and kissed you."

"And then for some fucking reason you kissed back."

He would talk about the weeks after; with all the fumbling around and the gay panic crisis which morphed straight into the "Oh shit he's an angel of the lord" panic crisis.

But then he would talk about the times when they finally figured everything out; when Dean realized that dating another dude doesn't change shit about who he is and that 'Cas the virgin' is a really good kisser after all. He would talk about the days when he realized that there really were a shit ton of perks that come with dating an angel; including the fact that dating a badass meant you didn't have to worry so much about said badass whenever shit went down because you knew that he could hold his own. It meant that when an ugly came rushing through the door and shot Cas in the chest that he would be right as rain; and it meant that when shit hit the fan he could always count on Cas to mojo them the fuck out of there.

He would talk about the days when they would just drive somewhere and sit on the impala. How Dean would drink a beer and when Cas thought he had too much he would passively aggressively drink all the bottles left in the car as well as the ones in the bunker.

He would talk about the moment when he had finally burst out that "I'm kinda sorta in love with you" and Cas had just nodded like it was the most normal thing in the world and said, "and I, you."

He would talk about the time when Cas stayed with him through the night and how, "…I didn't have one nightmare Cas. Not one. Everything just went fuzzy and I had the most restful sleep I've ever had in  _my life_  and how when I finally woke up you just  _looked_  at me and informed me that I had 127 freckles on my face and 'if I really hated them as much as I said then I should really invest in some sunscreen' and it was probably one of the most remarkably _Cas_ things I've ever heard and it's one of my favorite mornings ever."

Dean would talk about everything; everything that happened since they got together and what he thought about it and "do you remember that Cas?" followed quickly by "Of course you do. You remember the freakin dinosaurs and you're memories not crappin out yet. You probably remember more than I do, isn't that right?"

He talked and joked and confessed more than he ever had.

But Cas never answered.

Not once.


End file.
